The Civil Rights movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s
was a movement of activism. But it also gave us an important
theoretical base, a vocabulary for thinking about issues of
social justice — about the ways in which groups of people
can be marginalized, and a way of recognizing that process
so that we can interrupt it.

When the dominant members of society can maintain certain
attitudes and practices that demean and isolate other groups,
they are no longer under the same pressure to meet the needs
of those groups that are marginalized. They can retain their
dominance.

These demeaning attitudes serve as effective political shortcuts:
“We really don’t need to take these people seriously
in our society because — well, you
know.” They are especially effective when they spread
to other marginalized groups, so there can be no joint resistance,
and above all when the members of a group begin to believe
the stereotypes about themselves.

We need to name the “isms,” not for some political
exercise, but so we can identify the process that allows a
society to maintain unfair structures.

While The Old Women’s Project
focuses on the many issues that affect old women, we need
to keep in mind that the strategies that suppress old women
are exactly the same strategies that are used to suppress
other non-dominant groups.

Below are listed some of the typical strategies that permit
a dominant group to marginalize others. We’ve briefly
noted how old women — not most old men (click
to Why Ageism is
an Old Women’s
Issue?)— are affected by these attitudes
and practices. If you belong to one or more of the other groups,
you’ll want to note which of these stigmas your groups
share. Most of us who are women, or non-white, or from non-Caucasian
ethnicities, or from poverty or working class, or disabled,
or lesbian or gay have experienced most of these forms of
suppression directed towards us or our group.

INVISIBILITY

Old women are rarely present in social or political groups
that include younger people, and our absence is not noted
OR we are present but ignored.

Example: In a recent women’s
magazine, the cover story “Great at Any Age” turns
out to be a celebration of women by decades — ending with
a woman in her 50s.

STEREOTYPING

We are seen not as individuals but as types — often as grannies,
whether we have grandchildren or not; or, like many other
marginalized people, as childlike, more emotional, more excitable
in minor crises, submissive, dependent, unreliable.

Example: In a letter to the
New York Times Book Review, the writer describes Gertrude
Stein and Alice B. Toklas as having “welcomed me; both
of them were like jolly, hospitable grandmothers.” (click
to Why Is Ageism
an Old Women’s
Issue? and read DO OLD WOMEN, LIKE OLD MEN, EXIST
OUTSIDE OF FAMILY ROLES?)

ASSUMPTION OF MENTAL INFERIORITY

The stigma of mental inferiority becomes justification for
economic exploitation. Just as people of color are assumed
to be somehow not as intelligent as Caucasians, and working
class people must not have the same mental capacities as the
upper middleclass, old women are seen as not “with it,”
not as smart or interesting as younger people or old men.
(click to Why
Is Ageism an Old Women’s
Issue?)

Example: On a tape of Enron
traders joking about “stealing from those poor grandmothers
of California”: “Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But
she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to fucking
vote on the butterfly ballot.”

PATRONIZING

Like the young women who used to be told, “Don’t
bother your pretty little head,” or Asian Americans
who are praised for being the “model minority,”
old women regularly get comments that demean us. If we are
kind or even pleasant, we are “sweet little old ladies.”
If we have energy we are “feisty.” Strangers call
us “dear.” If we say or do something that doesn’t
fit their stereotype — say, come out of the closet in our
70s — we are “cute.”

TOKENIZING/EXCEPTIONALIZING

Tokenism — allowing certain members of a marginalized group
to have access to the privileges of the dominant group — has
two faces. A Colin Powell, a Christopher Reeves, an Ellen
de Generes, or the smattering of women in Congress signal
progress for groups once completely excluded. So also a Sandra
Day O’Connor or Ruth Bader Ginsburg represents progress
for old women. At the same time, their visibility serves to
maintain the status quo by reassuring the society that ageism
— like racism, ableism, homophobia, sexism — is not really
a problem in our society, so no structures need to be changed.

CONTEMPT

Whether “The place was full of fags” or “there
was nobody there but a bunch of old ladies,” the message
is disdain for the group.

PHYSICAL REVULSION

Old women — like people of color, gays and lesbians, Arabs,
Jews, poverty or working class people, disabled people — are
often held at a distance because our physical presence is
found distasteful. Birthday cards glory in promoting profound
disgust at our bodies. This is a particularly successful strategy
for isolating members of a group. People don’t have
to consciously process thoughts about our inferiority — their
behavior has been modified, and they withdraw instinctively.

NAMING THE SEGREGATION OR PHYSICAL REVULSION AS NATURAL

Of course it is natural that a younger person would be bored
talking to an old woman — just as it is natural that men would
want their own private clubs, that nobody would be sexually
attracted to someone in a wheelchair, that heterosexuals in
the army would recoil from serving with gays, that white people
wanted their own water fountains.

ASSUMPTION YOU’D RATHER BE SOMEONE ELSE

Just as it’s often assumed that people of color would
prefer to be white, or lesbians and gays would prefer to be
heterosexual, it is usually assumed that old women would prefer
to be young. So we constantly hear, “How are you today,
young lady?” The more we can free ourselves from the
assumptions and practices of ageism, the more we can embrace
our own reality. (click to The
Secret Lives of Old Women)

STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL

Those of us who belong to a group that is marginalized learn
ways of responding. Some ways are more to be encouraged than
others, but all need to be understood as a response to painful
pressures. Whenever we can afford to abandon a practice that
holds our group back, or adopt one that challenges our marginalization,
we will of course feel stronger and freer.

PASSING/STAYING IN THE CLOSET

Coloring white hair, Botox, facial surgery to disguise age
are becoming the norm, just as hair straightening, skin lightening
or “nose jobs” have sometimes been for African
Americans or Jews. FDR never allowed photographers to show
his wheelchair. Like the lesbian who feels she must talk about
her “roommate,” old women often feel that to reveal
our real age will profoundly change people’s attitudes
towards us. Eileen Barrett, 68, an insurance consultant in
New York, explained the reason for her recent cosmetic facial
surgery to the L.A. Times: “After awhile, it’s
just a feeling you get. You notice a change in the way people
treat you.”

ACCEPT THE TOKENIZING

Everybody wants to think they aren’t a (whatever)ist,
so they will be delighted to find an occasional person of
a marginalized group that they can praise. If you’re
told, “Gee, you don’t seem like an Indian from
the reservation!” “I’d never have guessed
you were gay!” or “I can’t believe you’re
80, I can’t talk to my grandmother and her friends like
this!”, you may be that person. Sometimes being the
“wonderful exception” can seem like a relief after
being ignored or discounted. Since we are in fact wonderful,
we can accept the compliments about how wonderful we are,
as long as we use them to raise up our sisters whom we’re
being compared to. “I’m glad you think I’m
special, but you know old women generally are given a bad
rap.”

STRUGGLE NOT TO INTERNALIZE ATTITUDES

This is an ongoing challenge for poor and working class people,
people of color, disabled people, lesbians and gays. It offers
special challenges for old women. Since there exists so little
critical analysis of ageism — even otherwise progressive people
often treat ageist attitudes as just natural — we come into
age unprepared. (click to Why
Are Ageist Attitudes Still Acceptable?)

SELF-SEGREGATION

Of course people who share a culture or certain experiences
or challenges will value time together. This is not the same
as segregation — the separation of a marginalized group from
the dominant society and then often from other marginalized
groups — or the self-segregation that occurs when we find
it just becomes too wearing to have to deal with invisibility
or indignities.

DENIGRATING OTHER MARGINALIZED GROUPS OR OUR OWN

To join in stigmatizing other groups is to identify with the
dominant group, and that can feel reassuring. To join in stigmatizing
our own group can even bring special rewards, as it has for
a Laura Schlessinger or Clarence Thomas. An old woman who
says, “You know, I really enjoy being around younger
people. I hate to say it, but old women are always complaining”
can, by exceptionalizing herself, negotiate her right to be
treated with respect.

CLAIMING OUR IDENTITY

The lesbian who comes out wherever she can. The African American
who could pass but doesn’t. The Chicana who talks about
her family in Mexico. The Harvard graduate student who talks
about her mother’s work as a janitor. The Muslim woman
who wears a hijab to a feminist event. The old woman who keeps
her hair white and talks confidently about her age.

ACTIVISM

Working actively to change the world for old women, and forming
alliances with other marginalized groups so that we recognize
how many interests we in fact share, creates a solidarity
and a hope for a future of respect for all people.